Charlie's Duds and Studs

I was encouraged by the MSU game. Not thrilled; theres nothing to be ecstatic about when your team loses by 17 points to an unranked foe. Ever. But some players at least showed some potential on Saturday, and Charlie's Nasties would like to congratulate those players. But first, lets look at who underperformed:

Duds:

Tom Zbikowski: After watching highlights of him two years ago, I would expect Zibby to actually be killing teams (figuratively, and the cases of a few wide outs, literally) by his fifth year, but up to this point in the season, his coverage gambles have resulted in big plays for the offense instead of turnovers, and he has yet to deliver a respectable hit in the run game. One tackle comes to mind in the MSU game where Zibby was playing at linebacker depth and made contact with Javon Ringer after a gain of a yard or two, but instead of squaring up and knocking him back, Zbikowski was content to wrap his arms around Ringer's shoulder pads and ride him for an extra 5 or 6 yards before bringing him down. I might expect such arm tackles out of a high school player, but a fifth year senior known for hitting shouldn't be holding on to a running back for that long.

Weis: Sorry Charlie, the offense looked more respectable today (see studs) but a few mistakes lead me to uncharacteristically point fingers at the coaching staff. Specifically, the decision to go for it on a 4th and 2 from midfield seemed questionable. If we were in a situation where it was too close to punt and too long for the field goal, I would give Weis a pass, but calling a run to Schawpp out of all people when the Irish havn't been able to convert on short yardage all year put our defense on its heels early in the game, and could have been avoided.

Slow Mo

The Secondary: Brian Hoyer was the most inept quarterback the Irish have faced all season. How did we respond? By allowing four touchdown passes. I'm not going to go into much detail about this one, but its downright unacceptable to have a wide receiver double covered on fourth down and allow him five yards of space to catch a touchdown pass.

Clausen: I have a feeling I might get some heat for this one, but I'm sticking to it. True Jimmy completed 7/13 passes, but they only went for a 4.1 average. To give you some perspective, Aldridge and Hughes averaged over 5 yards a carry, and they never got sacked or fumbled. Sharpley demonstrated much better pocket presence when he came in and threw his passes with considerably more zip. I don't know if its because of his elbow surgery, but Clausen's passes have seemed lazy and we have yet to challenge a team with more than one deep ball.

Studs:


The Offensive Line: Alright, they have a lot of room to improve, but they showed considerably more effort in Saturday's game than they have all season. Young, Turkovich, and Sullivan were consistently able to allow us to run to the left and the only time Clausen was sacked from his backside was when he decided to roll out for 10 seconds without checking his blind side. I attribute this improvement largely to the way practice was run over the week, and if the line continues to improve like it did last week, our team could be competitive much sooner then anticipated.


Freshmen Linebackers: Kerry Neal and Brian Smith were great. Both of them showed that they were able to power their way around the tackles and get to the quarterback. Having two outside players that can disrupt the line will be key to the success of the 3-4.

Young Legs: As Weis promised, Saturday would be an Aldridge type of day, and it was. James showed everyone in the stadium why he was a five star recruit when he plowed through defenders, showed good hole recognition, and even a little more speed than some people expected. Hughes made a case to be pushed up the depth chart with his impressive runs as well. We saw less of Armando against MSU, but he did his job with the carries he was given.

All and all, could've been better, could've been worse, but on Saturday I saw a glimpse of the future Irish. Note that all of the studs were young players (except Sullivan, who at least partially redeemed himself from last weeks atrocity); this year may be a downer, but don't be too quick to turn your backs domers, things have the potential to get better fast.

Go Irish.